Originally Posted by: Incidents HappenOkay guys, so I've spent alot of time looking around for some nice guitar colleges out there, since I will be going to one. The obvious choice is Berklee (which is most likely where I'll go), but there are many in the field. Please, please, please add any guitar colleges you think are suitable for any musician looking for a further education.
The List-
Berklee College of Music
Location: Boston, Mass.
Tuition: I believe it was $18,000 when i checked
Known as the number one contemporary music college in the country. Modern music's "Julliard", as many call it.
~Incidents
I can tell you about my experience at Berklee, which I attended for 2 1/2 yrs. as a performance major. I was already in college as a Bio major, but was really spending more time playing my guitar than studying Bio. I'm not really into jazz, but I took some lessons from Lenny Breau- if you're heavy into jazz, I think you'd agree he's really unique and a legend in his own right. Anyway, he suggested I pursue a career in music and suggested Berklee- I think they were considered THE school for modern guitar in the late '70's. He wrote my letter of recommendation, and I was in w/out even an audition.
Anyway, they were heavily be-bop oriented; don't know what their curriculum is like now. They FORCED all guitar players to play with a "floating hand"- I like to anchor my hand on the bridge or sometimes my pinky, and I also hybrid pick.
I wouldn't go to Berklee unless you're a pretty good sight read-reader already unless you're willing to take sight-reading 101. I was playing for 8 yrs. already but was a lousy sight-reader (still am).
But I'm not slamming Berklee cuz I had to work hard; to tell ya the truth, I was in heaven having a guitar in my hands almost all my waking hrs. It was how rigid Berklee was in how they taught- it was THEIR WAY, or no way at all. They took any originality you had and sucked the soul out of you. To this day, I can almost tell after about 8 notes a Berklee player. Maybe things are different now; I really don't know. I sure hope they've added a bit of rock/blues just to have a bit more variety. As someone else said, there is a bit of snobbery at Berklee; the hardcore be-boppers can drive you insane. I was one of the few guitar players there with a solid body. Alot of the teachers were just graduated students themselves or seniors moon-lighting. One teacher told me he was getting paid $5/hr. Not alot even in 1978. As a performance major, you got 1 private lesson a week. My instructor didn't care if we were in tune or not, and was stoned all the time anyway, lol. Improv class was a nightmare for me- I'd play whatever I was hearing in my head or feeling, but the instructor would always stop me and tell me I should make the guitar sound like a horn! That was HIS way of playing. If I wanted my instrument to sound like a freaking horn, I woulda taken up the horn. I want a guitar to sound like a f****** guitar! It was crap like that that drove me nuts.
In arranging we were always given jazz standards to arrange like Green Dolphin Street- I'd piss off the teacher and arrange as a disco tune, lol. Even my fellow students thought that was funny. My teacher told me disco wasn't music. So then I tried a rock-ish bluesy kind of arrangement. Told the same thing. IT HAD TO BE JAAAAZ. Kinda of close minded in a school of learning. No room to stretch out. Yeah, the drop-out rate is high. I'd say more because of how they stifled your creativity. I knew some really smokin' players that dropped out for the same reasons I did- and the were jazz players!
The upside: theory, arranging, and ear training helped me alot (still have a lousy ear, lol). Gave me a whole different take on listening to music. Great clubs, HOT women. There was a Japanese trumpet player who was an instructor name "Tiger" who'd play gigs locally; he was kinda jazz/fusion and really smoked. I bet he let his students really stretch out. Great college town, you meet people from literally everwhere.
Unfortunately, I had pretty much the same teachers the time I was there- so after awhile, it was like torture. Constant battle about how I couldn't/shouldn't do things, and the change in how I picked drove me insane; they also insisted on a strict alternating picking style. No hybrid picking, no anchoring of the picking hand, no dampening of the strings (tell that to Al DiMeola, another Berlee dropout; the 2 classical tunes he did on his first coupla albums was straight out of Berklee's books.)
I've heard some CD's from Berklee graduates, they sound great, but they sound like BERKLEE players. Change the names on the disks, and you can't tell one from the other for the most part. It's my opinion that Berklee is riding it's reputation alone, not really for its quality of teaching. They're probably more famous for their dropouts than for any graduate they ever had. I hear they have a really good sound engineering course though.
I'm really not as bitter as I may sound. I know I would have regretted it if I didn't go. Berklee or not, I'm just not a great player. At my best, looking back, I'd say I was pretty damned good, just not good enough under my own standards. It was fun though. Just wasn't for me. If you love Bird, then Berklee may just be the place for you. Whatever the instrument or class, it was Bird, Bird, Bird. I was never crazy about Joe Pass, but did like learning some of his chord solos. I pretty much like most things on guitar, but man, they wouldn't even let me fingerpick! But again, things may have changed- maybe you should google them and see if there's a Berklee forum. Or maybe you'll find a current student respond. If I really had it to do over again, I would have simply joined a garage band, lol. Nah, it wasn't THAT bad, I really did learn some stuff, just wasn't allowed to play what I wanted. That's kinda like majoring in English and being forced to write only in the style of Hemingway.
Heard really good things about GIT. You mentioned Pat Martino- I really liked him. Have one of his albums (vinyl) buried somewhere. In New York I've heard that...I think it's called the Eastman School of Music or something...very good things from what I've heard. The "big-name" schools aren't necessarily the best. Education or not, you still may end up piss poor- as a musician anyway.
To tell you the truth, in the week (or less) I've been a member of this forum, I've seen more stuff to learn from than I did from Berklee. There's zillions of kick-ass guitar players now. Maybe you can go to college and major in something else and just take private lessons? I wouldn't rule it out having gone to a "real" music school myself. Good luck in your endeavor.
Silimtao-The Way of the Little Idea
I want to die peacefully like my grandfather. Unlike the other passengers in the car, screaming and crying. (unknown)
